Jean Malrieu

Jean Malrieu (29 August 1915, Montauban – 24 April 1976, Montauban) was a 20th-century French poet.

Biography He attended high school in his hometown and then studied law. He was mobilized in 1939. After the war, he practiced various trades, before becoming a teacher. He established friendly relations with the Surrealists and met André Breton on the occasion of the publication of his collection Préface à l'amour in 1953. He collaborated with several publications of the surrealist movement. As a communist militant, he distanced himself from the French Communist Party in 1956 after the Soviet intervention in Hungary. He evolved from a lyrical writing to a drier, sometimes more anguished writing, but always attentive to everyday objects, animals, plants and the earth that carries them. He asserted that poetry "requires rigorous language."

He created the magazines Action poétique (1950–1956, with Gérald Neveu) then Sud (1970), which would continue the action of Les Cahiers du Sud.

Prizes 1953: Prix Guillaume Apollinaire 1963: Prix Antonin-Artaud